The Silent "I"

Santiago, Chile: Finding a Happy Place

February 11, 2004

We left Easter Island on February 10 and started back to California via Santiago Chile.  We arrived late in the afternoon, and Alex decided to have the worst temper tantrum of his life in the luggage claim area of the Santiago airport.  He tried to throw himself on the luggage conveyor belt, but we managed to stop him in before he was tagged and sent on his way to Lima, Peru.  Sometimes, traveling with a toddler is not all it's cracked up to be.

Santiago reminded me a lot of Los Angeles, a gigantic urban basin packed with buildings surrounded by mountains.  We checked into the Santiago Marriott, which was conveniently located across the street from a toy store.  It was Sunday, so Alex could do nothing more than gaze longingly out twentieth-floor window. 

Planning a Trip to Easter Island

If you're interested in visiting Easter Island aka Isla de Pascua aka Rapa Nui aka "The Navel of the World," be forewarned that it is far, far away from any main airport hub and it will take a while to get there.  Lan Chile flights out of Santiago, Chile leave twice weekly, stopping off in Easter Island en route to Tahiti.  Your choices for direct flights are either out of Santiago or Papeete, Tahiti.  Be sure to book your flights well in advance. 

Further, there are limited hotel rooms on the island, and no major American or European chains.  The hotels are locally owned due to laws preserving the rights of native Rapa Nui people in landownership.  When we were there, there was a big debate among the Rapa Nui elders as to whether or not to allow Club Med to build a resort there.  As far as I know, they didn't allow it.  Part of the island's charm is the vast expanses of unspoiled land and the ability to see moai around nearly every bend in the road. Most hotels would be classified as "motels" by American standards, or large bed-and-breakfast style guest houses.

Easter Island: A Music Video by Animoto

I received a free pass to try out Animoto, a website that turns your short videos and photos into cool music videos in a few minutes.  I've agonized over iMovie attempting to do things like this, but lack the patience or skills to complete anything.  With Animoto, you just upload your pictures, choose some music, and they do the rest. The video here took about 15 minutes to upload the pictures, set the music, and then wait for it to be created. The hardest part was figuring out what pictures to use.

If you sign up, you can do a 30-second video for free, but an all-access pass for one year to create longer videos is $30/year.  You can upgrade to an HD version to burn onto a DVD for an additional $5 per video, if you need it for a special occasion.  I'm thinking about doing one for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary next year.

If you sign up using this link, you can get $5 off an all-access pass, and I earn a discount off future purchases.

Also, if you want to see some other great travel photos, check out Delicious Baby's Photo Friday today!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary temporary all-access pass to try out Animoto, but no other compensation or incentive for writing this review or trying out the product.

Easter Island: Where to Play

 

February 2004

When traveling with kids to any destination, it's always good to know what kid-friendly activities there are for the time when you're not touring interesting landmarks or watching locals run around recreating ancient rituals.  I think our son would be happy anyplace in the world where we could find a playground, a swimming pool, and a soccer field.  It seems as though wherever you are in the world, and wherever you find kids, you can find opportunities to play.  It's also a great way to meet local people and see how kids in other cultures are so much like kids in the US.

Our hotel, the Tahatai, had a small swimming pool, but Alex was entranced with the idea of swimming in the ocean after our day at Anakena Beach, one of the most gorgeous spots on the island.  We forgot his swimsuit that day, but swimming au naturel (for a three year old, at least) was not a problem.

We were able to satisfy his wish by going to a walled-off swimming hole near the hotel, right along the coastline.  There were retaining walls around the area, keeping the waves to a minimum and the water fairly shallow.  Alexander loved splashing around in the cold Pacific waters. Local kids took swimming lessons in this spot, so it definitely had the local stamp of approval for kids.

Easter Island: Of Cannibals and Caves

 

February 7, 2004

After trekking up to the cliffside ruins of Orongo, China took us on a tour of caves that had been used by the ancient Rapa Nui for ceremonial purposes.  One was down a steep, slippery path by the sea, and featured some amazing cave paintings.

The paintings were of some kind of bird, and were rust, white, pink and black.  The lighting inside the cave was not great, but you can see some of the outlines of the drawings in the picture above.

Easter Island: The Birdmen of Orongo

February 7, 2004

On our third day in Easter Island, Chile, our fabulous tour guide, China picked us up at our hotel for a day exploring another aspect of Rapa Nui Culture: the Birdman competition.  After seeing the modern-day version involving skimpily-clad men running around a lake carrying bundles of banana, we were interested to see some of original sites.

China drove us to Orongo, part of the Rapa Nui National Park.  Orongo was formerly a village set on a cliff with spectacular views of the Ocean, over looking a small island called Moto Nui.  The micro-island was famous as a nesting ground for the sooty tern, a bird whose eggs were prized by the early Rapa Nui people.  In the 17th to 19th centuries, European explorers wrote of a "birdman cult" in which young men would compete in a contest to see who could recover the first sooty tern egg of the season by jumping off the cliff at Orongo, swimming across shark-infested waters, stealing an egg, and then scaling the cliff without breaking the egg.  The first to do so would hold be crowned as Tangata Manu ("bird man") and hold a place in the tribe for the following year.  The Birdman competitions were held long after the moai-building ceased, despite any Hollywood representations to the contrary.

Shopping in Hanga Roa, Easter Island

This post is part of a retrospective on our trip to Easter Island for the Tapati Rapa Nui festival in February, 2004.

After our day seeing moai in various states of completion and decay, we spent a few leisurely mornings shopping in the town of Hanga Roa and visiting the Rapa Nui Museum.  The town was in walking distance from our hotel, the Taha Tai Hotel, and featured some nice restaurants and shops. I enjoyed shopping on a quiet little street at the Mercado Artisanal, which featured handmade crafts of -- you guessed it, moai big and small. 

The Mercado is actually an open air market with little grass tiki huts with various vendors selling key chains, magnets, statues big and small, and other goods.  When we visited, it was a lazy day with not many tourists. The people working the stands were friendly and charming. They forgave my poor attempts at Spanish, and many of them spoke enough English to be able to barter and complete a sales transaction.

I met a woman from Connecticut at one of the key chain vendors, who told me that she came to this island every year for the past twenty years, and it was her favorite place on earth. The island is not that big, so there's not a huge variety of things to do, but I could certainly see getting attached to it and wanting to return.  We go to Kauai every other year for the same reasons, but it's only a four hour flight from California.  I admired her dedication in getting here every year, despite the travel.

The shops in the Mercado had a variety of wooden and stone moai to choose from, from tiny to about the size of Alexander.  I wasn't sure how anyone would pack a 4 ft tall stone statuary in his or her luggage, but I guess they could ship it home to you at some exhorbitant rate.  I opted for the ones that we could fit in our pockets or in the spare spaces in our suitcases, which were already pretty full from our trip to Iguazu Falls.

Easter Island: Tapati Rapa Nui Festival Lake Competition

This post is part of a retrospective series on our trip to Easter Island in 2004 for the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival. Note: some of the photos in this post are rated PG for partial nudity.

February 5, 2004

In the afternoon of our second day on Easter Island, we caught a cab to take us to the big "Birdman" competition at the lake in the volcano.  By 'taxi" I mean beat-up, grimey blue Gremlin with no seatbelts and a driver who was about 8 months pregnant.  I think she may have been our tour guide China's cousin.  China wasn't with us on this day, but promised she'd send a taxi for us, and she did.  Anyway, the driver didn't speak much English,but she knew where we needed to go. She drove across the dustry roads and went off-road a bit to drop us  near an entrance to the festival that didn't require risking life and limb and a steep climb up the side of the volcano to see the race. 

We walked through a narrow canyon of red rock a with a stream of people all headed toward the same destination, the volcano crater lake, Rano Raraku.  In this event, young men representing one or the other of the Rapa Nui Queen contestants compete in a sort of native triathalon. 

Easter Island: Redefining "Statuesque" for Photo Friday

This is my favorite photo of Alexander from our trip to Easter Island. The perspective makes him appear nearly as big as the moai, which are actually at huge in comparison. Our family has a tradition of standing in front of statues and posing like them.

Easter Island: Moai on the Beach

February 5, 2004

After spending some time at the fallen moai site, our fabulous tour guide China drove us to Ahu Tongariki.  This featured 15 stone moai of varying sizes and in various condition, all facing out to sea. This is one of the largest display of standing Moai on the island, and was quite impressive.  Some of them were being restored, and had scaffolding and blue tarps over them, which made them look like some of them were using porto-potties.  

It was quite amazing to me that somehow the ancient Rapa Nui had carved these multi-ton stone statues, somehow managed to drag them down the mountainside, and place them upright on a platform or Ahu.  This was some feat of engineering and physics to be able to manipulate stone using only primitive tools.  The Ahu also served as the final resting place of various chiefs and tribal nobles, so you can't walk on the ahu, but can get close enough to admire the size of the statues. 

It's thought that the original statues had large top-knots made of a different kind of stone than the bodies, and the eyes were made of white rock with obsidian irises.  None of the original eyes survived, so most of the statues have haunting, eyeless sockets.  I'm not sure if that is something that was added by the restorers, or if it was discovered that way.  The rock that made up the top-knot is much more porous and crumbly than the stone used in the bodies, so it was easily broken.  Even though China told us these head pieces were supposed to be top-knots or hair, we still called them hats.

While we were there, several workers scurried around moving piles of rocks to and from the ahu.  Alexander wanted to help out and move some rocks, but they were too much for him.